What was your "a-ha!" moment?

[Overnight]

1. Trading the ES futures market is VERY easy, and I will be filthy rich in 3 months.

Postmarked

 

[schizo]

Good Evening schizo,

My ah ha moment came a week ago around 3am at night.

1. Trading the ES futures market is VERY easy, and I will be filthy rich in 3 months.
2. The ES futures market is the most easiest on the plant to get rich in a few weeks.
3. Trading is not hard.

Oh, really?? I suppose you already figured out that ES is my playground. Come over to ES Journal sometimes and we can headbutt one another (I think your head might be more dense than mine though).

 

[schizo]

40 years i still have ah-ha's about 1 a week at least...

i'm still dumb lol.

Not to worry, I have your back covered.

 

[rb7]

Without divulging too much, share your moment of epiphany that propelled your trading higher.

I had two of these moments:

1. Instead of looking for trends, always look for traps.
2. Everything repeats in cycles.

Can one have a 'a-ah' moment (or many!) and still struggling making money?
If yes, then that 'a-ah' was a false one?
Idk, just asking.

 

[Zwaen]

You brought up a good point about institutional vs retail. Hence, you need understand who sets up these traps. Is it institutional or the collective retail traders? No need for me to answer, right?

Now, one thing that might help you better understand TRAP is the notion of "prisoner's dilemma". The underlying premise goes something like this: everyone will benefit if we all cooperate, but if I don't cooperate (but know that you will likely cooperate), I will win big and you will lose.

I was more talking about how fast one can liquidate a position. The faster you can, the more you can limit losses. It's imo one of the very few advantages retail/ small money has. It is very simple to 'know', but one has to build a strategy around it.

What do you exactly mean by traps? What you describe sounds a bit like penny stock pump and dump. From my knowledge you trade ES?

 

[Nine_Ender]

There comes a point where one realizes that most of the really loud media types and "traders" are mostly useless sources of info. Most of the researched, well planned trades I make work out if I'm patient and let them run. Sometimes you have to have a discerning ear in this information age and stick to your guns unless a very measurable, real reason occurs to shift course ( eg a company refinances diluting their stock or a big negative balance sheet item occurs ).

 

[SimpleMeLike]

Can one have a 'a-ah' moment (or many!) and still struggling making money?
If yes, then that 'a-ah' was a false one?
Idk, just asking.

Good Morning rb7,

Of course they can.

 

[Slope Trader]

Deciding to start backtesting specific entry and exit rules while scrolling through historical charts one candle at a time made a big difference. When I got a crappy result the first time a new idea was tested, I learned that I could go back and carefully analyze all the losers on the charts and see what would have eliminated some of them.

I use trend and momentum indicators and their parameters could be adjusted. Price bar structure could be changed too, like requiring that the upper wick on a bullish signal bar not be too long, with a mathematical rule for that, or that the close of a bullish signal bar be in the top half or top quarter, or that its height not be more than N times the current ATR in size, or that the current close be part of a pullback (e.g., current close is lower than the high of any one of the last three candles meaning a pullback occurred, etc.).

Ordering parameters could be varied to see which worked best, like comparing buying on the open of the next candle versus with a stop order X ticks or N times the ATR above the close of the signal bar or above its high or below the close by a certain amount using a limit order. The rules for setting the stoploss and then trailing it could be varied based on ATR or 1R multiples or other factors. Getting my act together and adding this kind of discipline to my studies had the most impact.

 

[Bugenhagen]

1. A retail trader and also a pair of married traders observed that because I don't react nearly as strongly as most to loss/further loss I might have a gift/curse applicable to retail futures trading.

2. I needed to hire help after some unforced errors caused by tiredness.

 

[traider]

One of the very few advantages a retail trader has over institutional money has is that you can exit relatively instantly. It's one of the very few things that really work, like e.g that stocks trend more then random.

It took me 7 years to really understand and use the advantage.

How do you know it's a real 'trap', and not an imaginative event build on assumptions of assumptions?

Do u trade trend or mean reversion?